EXPLOSION IN TURRET TWO
Investigation Continued

43.       The chain of that command is now so diffuse that effective control, with clear and direct authority, responsibility, and accountability realistically vested in a single commander, does not appear to exist.

44.       Within the Navy Department, the closest we come to such a commander is the Chief of Naval Material.  Under his command are four of the key separate entities in ammunition design and procurement: NAVORDSYSCOM, NAVSUPSYSCOM, NOL White Oak, and NWL Dahlgren.  But neither he nor anyone else within the Department of the Navy commands the inspectors who pass upon the technical quality of contract-procured components of Navy gun ammunition:  they belong to the Defense Supply Agency.  Nor does the CNM appear to have directive authority over ammunition technical matters at overseas Naval ammunition facilities, for example NAVMAG Subic:  they are command-subordinated in the fleet.

45.       But beyond all that, the span of CNM responsibilities is too broad to permit him to function effectively in person as the single commander for ammunition.  It would be inevitable that most on-going decisions and actions nominally his as the commander would in fact be taken by staff functionaries – those necessary but faceless subordinates who can share none of the responsibility of command, and who, in the familiar bureaucratic system often know little about that kind of responsibility.  It would be one more case of over-centralization to attempt to set up CNM as the single commander for naval gun ammunition technical matters.

46.       Throughout World War II and much of the period after it the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, and later his successor the Chief of the Bureau of Naval Weapons, had full command and single-manager control of these ammunition matters, the authority and responsibility that went with them, and the staff assistance necessary for effective functioning.  Organizational changes which need not be recounted here, including some imposed from the Department of the Navy, have progressively eroded that control (and indeed may be continuing the process at present) – notably, however, without fixing any of the responsibility.

47.       COMNAVORDSYSCOM appears to be a suitable, and in our judgment the preferable, commander in whom to reestablish the closest feasible approach to the authority, responsibility, and accountability with respect to gun ammunition technical matters, which formerly reside in the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance: and to whom to furnish the appropriate staff and money support.  To accomplish these changes will present familiar administrative problems in predictable offices, including some outside the Department of the Navy.  In our judgment, however, the unique technical problems inherent in gun ammunition, and the gravity and lethality of the results of anything less then the best control, require that those problems be faced and surmounted.

            (page 16)